BOOKS OF THE TIMES; The Vampire Wears Flannel, and He Cheats on His Tan

By JANET MASLIN

Published: January 15, 2007

You Suck
A Love Story
By Christopher Moore
328 pages. William Morrow. $21.95.

After an early career bright with promise (and with titles like ''Island of the Sequined Love Nun''), Christopher Moore wandered onto the swampier terrain of zonked-out comic horror. This has become his specialty, and he delivers it with wildly varying degrees of finesse. His last book, ''A Dirty Job,'' was one of his iffier amalgams, dealing with death merchants, a motherless child and strange little squirrel people.

Now Mr. Moore is back on track with a vampire comedy and an instant joke: it's called ''You Suck,'' so publications that otherwise avoid that phrase have to print its title. The title needs mentioning because the book will be too popular to be ignored. ''You Suck'' is funny enough to reanimate Mr. Moore's fans, at least those who wondered about the last book's squirrel types. It's sure to appeal to anyone who shares the author's ideas of a fun-loving vampire's priorities.

Among these: using self-tanning lotion to avoid a deathly pallor (''I think the pale thing is giving me away''), anointing a cute little goth minion (''What do we need an onion for?'') and redyeing vampire vestments to avoid embarrassment. Even worse than being caught in daylight is the mortification, by Mr. Moore's nocturnal lights, of wearing black clothes so overwashed that they start to look gray.

''You Suck'' is a sequel. This does not bode well for a cult author who writes fast and already recycles favorite gags and characters. But it's a follow-up to ''Bloodsucking Fiends,'' which came out in 1995, before Mr. Moore's reputation for riotous humor was fully established.

A decent interval has gone by, so that this story's adolescent hero, C. Thomas Flood, seems fresh again. For one thing the new book's jacket mysteriously calls him Thomas C. Flood. Also, Tommy has been through big changes since that earlier story. He used to be alive, but now he's sort of dead.

The title reflects Tommy's dismay at discovering that last fact. He blames Jody, the beautiful redheaded vampire who bit him (''I wanted us to be together,'' she tries to explain) and has given him a whole new set of problems.

Once Tommy worked at a supermarket and devoted himself to pursuits like bowling with frozen turkeys. Now he must puzzle over the vampire's bodily functions (or lack thereof), dawn curfew, tendency to lisp because of those ''fangth'' and wardrobe issues. Wearing a flannel shirt at a nightclub, Tommy winds up looking ''like he'd shown up at the sacrificial mass of the damned ready to fix the dishwasher.''

Although constructing plots is as much of a nuisance for Mr. Moore as it is a necessity, ''You Suck'' puts Tommy and Jody in the midst of nicely crazed company. The book's funniest voice is that of the minion, who calls herself Abby Normal.

''Allison is my day-slave name -- my mom named me after some song by some Elvis guy, so I totally refuse to accept it,'' Abby writes in her journal, which is one long hoot, as she exults in the honor of being able to treat Tommy as her boss and mentor. ''He is called the vampyre Flood,'' she writes, ''and he didn't say, but I think he is descended from European royalty -- a viscount or a discount or one of those.''

Though Abby whimpers that her life is dull (''the time passes like a seeping infection on a bad eyebrow piercing''), things pick up considerably when she begins doing the bidding of Tommy and Jody. Abby and her boyfriend, Jared (''And Jared was all, 'Whoa' ''), even wrap and duct-tape the vampires for daytime transport and are caught by the police loading two mummylike objects into a minivan.

Abby's version of this incident illustrates some of Mr. Moore's best ventriloquism for a teenage girl: ''And they're all, 'So, what are you doing with your piercings and your magenta-on-black hair, and what can we do to further repress your creativity? Bluster-blah-blah.''

Because ''You Suck'' vacillates between goth gags and actual blood-guzzling, it ought to be a tricky balancing act for Mr. Moore. But he glides comfortably through the book's loony little corner of San Francisco and through drastic changes of mood. He also manages, despite figures like a blue-painted prostitute who prompts visions of sex with a Smurf, to keep the book's eccentricity in check and its screwball antics from becoming insufferable.

As with his best work, there's a fundamental sweetness beneath the antics. And the characters are developed with real affection. That most of them are dead is never allowed to seem sad. And for parasitical bloodsuckers, they do remarkably little harm.

Mr. Moore's comic ravings manage to mix drastically incongruous elements of ordinary life, which is no small part of their appeal. When some of the book's characters need to masquerade as hip-hop tough guys, they go to Google to find an otherwise-unused gang color (orange) and then try out ridiculous orange-sounding names. (''Yo, Stone Tangerine Thugs, yo.'' ''Cheesy Goldfish Crew.'') When Abby perfects what she calls ''my Nosferatitude'' by resorting to a liquid diet, Starbucks provides the liquids of choice.

And when the book's stoner, ''Ohm-budsman,'' has his fateful encounter with a vampire, it's Christmas night. He is sitting in his living room in sunglasses, surrounded by five-foot-tall illicit potted plants, ''watching a movie on cable about the special relationship between the lady of an English manor and her chimney sweep.'' In Mr. Moore's universe this is a perfect holiday celebration.